Introducing Our Indicators

Over the years that The Concord Coalition has been working to promote fiscal responsibility, we've gotten to know our network of grassroots members pretty well. By and large they are earnest, inquisitive, and have a thirst for the raw facts that allow them to draw their own conclusions. We always keep them in mind when we develop our educational tools.

Whether in our Chart Talk or in Principles and Priorities, we aim to give a complete picture based on numbers from non-partisan sources such as the Congressional Budget Office. When we release our Washington Budget Report each week, we often provide -- in addition to our own explanations and perspectives -- links to the original numbers and government documents that we have used in our analyses.

To make the data even more readily accessible, we are pleased to announce the release of our new Fiscal Indicators. These are the numbers that we refer to every day, repackaged into interactive charts and graphs and woven into the fabric of our website's Issues section.

Each indicator is listed with a brief explanation and context for what makes it relevant, along with downloadable Excel documents and images for use in your own papers or presentations. Furthermore, because knowledge works better when you share it, we are providing HTML embed code so that you can place the same interactive charts that we use on your own blog or website. For example, you can post U.S. historical and projected debt figures exactly as they appear here:

Anyone who has had to work with charts, graphs and presentations has probably experienced the frustration of having different versions in different places, and trying to figure out which ones have been updated with the latest information. That's why we created the Indicators section so that all the interactive charts, images, and downloadable data files are updated across the site the minute we get new data. Furthermore, anyone who uses the embed code we provide will also have their copies of our charts updated automatically by our database.

We hope that this new feature proves useful as a standalone resource for budget enthusiasts and experts alike. The section remains a work in progress, so we welcome feedback on Twitter and on Facebook.